Bush Won In Iraq, But It Now Seems It's A Lost Cause

Iraq: President Bush's 2007 surge-based turnaround was one of the greatest military feats in history. President Obama's reversal of it was one of the greatest defeats, and it is emboldening the world's aggressors.

Why is Kim Jung-un, the crazed young dictator of North Korea whose best friend seems to be a freaky former NBA star, so over-the-top in threatening America with nuclear attack?

The answer can't be simple, considering the odd cult of the personality-based Pyongyang regime. But one sizeable factor undoubtedly is an attempt to diminish America's credibility in waging war.

Would we be willing to dig in for the long haul if Kim invaded free South Korea?

Does Vladimir Putin believe we would repel a Russian invasion of a strategically important neighbor?

Does China believe we would defend Taiwan?

Whatever perverse pleasure is being taken in it, Obama has seen to it that his predecessor's victory in Iraq — in which Bush extraordinarily resisted the Washington establishment of both parties to authorize the surge — ultimately ends in a U.S. failure.

Ten years after the liberation began, more than 4,400 of our soldiers and Marines are dead, roughly 32,000 have been wounded, and in excess of $800 billion went down the drain.

As columnist Michael Barone notes in IBD on the next page:

"The surge came too late to salvage the reputation of the Iraq War. Polls now show majorities think it was a mistake. Most Republican politicians seem disinclined to suggest we should intervene anywhere else."

Within Iraq, we now witness the once far-fetched spectacle of Islamofascist Tehran apparently doing all it can to block a no-confidence vote in the Iraqi parliament against Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Not long ago, Maliki was our democratically elected man there; now Secretary of State John Kerry fecklessly begs him to stop Iran from flying arms across Iraq to the terrorist Bashar al-Assad regime in blood-drenched Syria.

Why would Maliki — or any Iraqi politician — listen to America after we abandoned his people before our job was done, and now have little or no power or influence left in Iraq?

Iraq was supposed to become a Muslim island of political freedom and economic prosperity whose reverse domino effect would overwhelm not just the rule of the mullahs in Iran but al-Qaida-like jihadist movements throughout the Middle East.

It would be a first step in what Bush in his second inaugural called an "untamed fire of freedom," that with "America's influence" used "confidently in freedom's cause" would ultimately "reach the darkest corners of our world."

Iraq: President Bush's 2007 surge-based turnaround was one of the greatest military feats in history. President Obama's reversal of it was one of the greatest defeats, and it is emboldening the world's aggressors.

Why is Kim Jung-un, the crazed young dictator of North Korea whose best friend seems to be a freaky former NBA star, so over-the-top in threatening America with nuclear attack?

The answer can't be simple, considering the odd cult of the personality-based Pyongyang regime. But one sizeable factor undoubtedly is an attempt to diminish America's credibility in waging war.

Would we be willing to dig in for the long haul if Kim invaded free South Korea?

Does Vladimir Putin believe we would repel a Russian invasion of a strategically important neighbor?

Does China believe we would defend Taiwan?

Whatever perverse pleasure is being taken in it, Obama has seen to it that his predecessor's victory in Iraq — in which Bush extraordinarily resisted the Washington establishment of both parties to authorize the surge — ultimately ends in a U.S. failure.

Ten years after the liberation began, more than 4,400 of our soldiers and Marines are dead, roughly 32,000 have been wounded, and in excess of $800 billion went down the drain.

As columnist Michael Barone notes in IBD on the next page:

"The surge came too late to salvage the reputation of the Iraq War. Polls now show majorities think it was a mistake. Most Republican politicians seem disinclined to suggest we should intervene anywhere else."

Within Iraq, we now witness the once far-fetched spectacle of Islamofascist Tehran apparently doing all it can to block a no-confidence vote in the Iraqi parliament against Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Not long ago, Maliki was our democratically elected man there; now Secretary of State John Kerry fecklessly begs him to stop Iran from flying arms across Iraq to the terrorist Bashar al-Assad regime in blood-drenched Syria.

Why would Maliki — or any Iraqi politician — listen to America after we abandoned his people before our job was done, and now have little or no power or influence left in Iraq?

Iraq was supposed to become a Muslim island of political freedom and economic prosperity whose reverse domino effect would overwhelm not just the rule of the mullahs in Iran but al-Qaida-like jihadist movements throughout the Middle East.

It would be a first step in what Bush in his second inaugural called an "untamed fire of freedom," that with "America's influence" used "confidently in freedom's cause" would ultimately "reach the darkest corners of our world."

But as the Sunday Times of London's Toby Harnden revealed last week, even Bush Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, the first top Bush aide in the aftermath of 9/11 to advise regime change in Iraq, is distancing himself from the war decision and criticizing both the political and military policies employed.

He criticized, as well, Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi and other foreign sources of Iraqi intelligence.

Wolfowitz even says former Secretary of State Colin Powell had much more access to Bush than he did, so "if he was so sure" the Iraq invasion "was a mistake, why didn't he say so?"

Meanwhile, the New York Times, one of the most ardent foes of Bush's war policies, last week mused that "as much as we'd prefer to forget about Iraq, what happens there matters more than ever for the Middle East."

It matters for not just the Middle East but for the security of the entire free world. America, the world's lone superpower and supposed arsenal of democracy, lost a war in Vietnam, and has now lost two others in Iraq and Afghanistan. Free peoples with no stomach for defending themselves won't be free for long.

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